Garden Tours: A Perfect Excuse to Snoop!

I admit it. I'm a nosey parker at heart. There's nothing better I like than having a chance to get on the other side of the fences that keep me from seeing people's back yards and gardens. The best way to do that and not get arrested for trespassing is to go on a garden tour, and prime time for doing that in the Northwest is right now.

These events are supposed to be in the service of gathering ideas for one's own meager plot, but really a part of the thrill for me is having the chance to stroll through what only friends and family normally get to see.

Snoopy, as my father would have said, is my middle name.

The gardeners themselves are often in attendance at these tours, so you might get a chance to chat with them if you so choose. As an example, one garden owner last weekend admitted to planting bamboo in a corner of his garden as a screen between him and a neighbor he's had issues with, knowing that the plant might just send runners under the fence, a little-known-but-used-more-often-than-you-might-think technique I like to call "Passive-Aggressive Gardening."

One of the best ways to take advantage of these tours is to join the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon, which, for only $35 per year, offers its members self-guided tours of a rich and diverse array of gardens from April through October. Stretching from the coast to Bend and from the south Willamette Valley all the way north to Seattle, the featured gardens can be everything from a shade garden on a city lot in Portland, to a more rural but still gorgeous flower, fruit and vegetable extravaganza on 2 acres, to a historic garden designed by a major landscape architect. The society also offers workshops, lectures, programs, discounts at local nurseries and reduced prices on garden books.

Several neighborhoods offer garden tours, including Sellwood and Foster-Powell, and there's even a bike tour of community gardens in Northeast Portland. A national organization, the Garden Conservancy, offers tours in the region, and searching for "Portland Garden Tours" yielded several resources. So get out there and rubberneck to your heart's content!

Garden as Biography

It might not be polite to say it out loud, but I love to go on garden tours for the ideas I can steal about landscaping and plant varieties and combinations. Plus it's so much better to see them in place, in the same conditions that I have to contend with (freezes, soggy soil and overly shady patches, for instance).

Many gardens are lovely, designed down to the last detail from the aggregate stone used to form the pool surround to the precisely trimmed boxwood around the entry. A few reflect the personality of the gardener, with whimsical ornaments or sweet vignettes. Fewer still, usually long-established and hard-won, are like meeting the gardener herself.

I was fortunate to be able to walk through one such garden, that of Barbara Ashmun (below right), author of seminal books on garden design like "The Garden Design Primer,""Garden Retreats"and "Married to my Garden." On the near-acre plot you can tell that this is a garden that is always a work in progress, with boggy areas, shade and hot sun making it challenging to work in.

It's also casual, with whimsy in the purple watering cans suspended from a canopy at eye level, or a life-sized ceramic couple reclining under variegated dogwood, with many areas set aside for quiet contemplation. Unlike many grander gardens with their emphasis on geometry and a not-subtle display of wealth, this garden is one that offers glimpses and glances for the viewer who is willing to pay attention and notice what's going on in the periphery.

That said, there are definite statements of authority here, too. A tall sturdy tree dominates a slope of lawn leading down to the body of the garden, a perfect place to sit and survey (and probably make mental notes on what is and isn't working). Some unusual species occupy the "I didn't know that could grow in Zone 8!" territory, letting you know that this is a gardener who knows her stuff.

Ashmun herself was there, sitting in a bright pink folding chair under a favorite tree mid-garden, chatting with admirers, answering questions and watching tour-goers walking through, pointing and smiling. I introduced myself and thanked her for opening her private space for the day, but I didn't stay to chat. I'd already met her through her garden.

Going In Through the Garden

I've already confessed to being a nosy parker. Using the excuse that I have to walk the dog, I'm always peeking and peering over fences and through shrubbery in daylight and gazing in brightly lit, uncovered windows at night. I'm not out for lascivious thrills or gathering dirt on the neighbors, just boring stuff like how they paint their houses or landscape their yards. Really.

Which is yet another reason I love this time of year, when neighborhood homes, gardens and even chicken coops are thrown open to the prying eyes of the public. So I want to remind you about one garden tour in particular that's coming up this weekend that, appropriately enough, benefits a new landscape being done by dedicated volunteers at the West Slope Community Library.

It features seven gardens, including the almost completely edible garden of the Oregonian's Vern Nelson and his partner, Mary Sherman. A friend described it as having "one of the largest raised beds I’ve ever seen, side yards with strawberries, onions and garlic, a greenhouse, a trio of black ducks quacking, chickens laying, espaliered fruit trees and a new doorway Vern is installing to ornament the entry to their good friends and neighbors directly behind them. Plus a recently expanded covered back porch/living room with a roof extension with skylights and the beginnings of a new earth oven in progress."

With warm, sunny weather predicted, this is a can't-miss opportunity for garden lovers and snoops alike. You can bet I'm going!

Details: Raleigh Park Garden Tour. Sat., June 4, 10 am-3 pm; $15 advance, $17 day of tour; tickets available online. Pick up tickets and map the day of the tour at Raleigh Park Elementary School, 3678 SW 78th Ave.

Season of the Nosy Parkers

Nosy parker: a person of an overly inquisitive or prying nature.

Home tours, garden tours, tours of chicken coops, wood-burning ovens, beehives…it seems we can't get enough of peeking and prying, of oohing and aahing and pointing. And brave are the souls who open their gates and doors, not to mention their hutches, to the public. I am way too timid to undergo the scrutiny of anyone other than my dearest friends, who are apt to forgive (or at least not mention) my messy house, unswept cobwebs and half-finished projects.

But luckily there are those who willingly go where I cannot, with many worthy causes benefiting from their largesse. Like the West Slope Community Library, an important community hub in its neighborhood, which is seeking to renovate its aging perennial garden into a more structured garden with year-round interest.

My friend Kathryn's garden club is leading the charge to raise funds for the project, and has convinced seven neighborhood residents, including two of the city's most renowned gardeners, to open their personal gardens for the cause. Internationally recognized author Barbara Ashmun,known for her books on garden design, will be participating, as will the Oregonian's Hungry Gardener, Vern Nelson.

So grab a friend and your best binoculars and be prepared to satisfy your nosiest needs. You might even get some ideas to take home to your own garden.

Details: Raleigh Park Garden Tour. Sat., June 4, 10 am-3 pm; $15 advance, $17 day of tour; tickets available online. Pick up tickets and map the day of the tour at Raleigh Park Elementary School, 3678 SW 78th Ave.

Garden Conservancy Tour

What is it about spring that makes Oregonians so happy? A few hours of sunshine and we're like hippies after eating a few magic brownies, all smiley and dopey and talking to strangers like best friends we haven't seen in ages. Is it the parting of the clouds, or could it be all the energy that's bursting out of the soggy ground and filling the air with perfumes of green and earth and blossoms?

Whatever the reason, it's a time when gardeners are opening their own plots for visitors to tour and ooh and ahh over their heucheras and aquilegia. A great one is coming up on Saturday, May 12, when the Garden Conservancy is sponsoring their Portland Open Day tour of five of the best private gardens in the area. Among those featured are Terra Nova Nurseries founder Dan Heims' home garden, a chance to tour a mature planting of shade perennials and Japanese maples; garden writer and author Barbara Blossom Ashmun's home garden spanning 20 years of experiments with borders and bird habitats; and a rare opportunity to see the internationally acclaimed Jane Kerr Platt Garden, a collector's garden that is 60 years old and covers 2 1/2 acres surrounding the Platt's home designed by Pietro Belluschi.

So get out there and start collecting ideas for your home garden. As adman David Ogilvy advised in his autobiography, Confessions of an Advertising Man, "Search the world and steal the best." This event sounds like a don't-miss day for those not averse to heeding his words of wisdom!

Details: Portland Open Day tour of local gardens benefiting the Garden Conservancy and the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon. Sat., May 12. Admission $5 per garden at each location or book of six tickets for $25 available online or by phone. Phone 888-842-2442.